Kepner-Tregoe History

Kepner-Tregoe was built on the premise that people can be taught to think critically. While working for the Rand Corporation in the 1950s, our founders, Dr. Charles Kepner and Dr. Benjamin Tregoe, conducted research on breakdowns in decision making at the Strategic Air Command. They discovered that successful decision making by Air Force officers had less to do with rank or career path than the logical process an officer used to gather, organize, and analyze information before taking action.

Based on their initial research, they founded Kepner-Tregoe, a company that continues to analyze and develop thinking processes for critical business applications. Kepner and Tregoe spent thousands of hours observing the practices of both effective and ineffective decision makers responding to complex, repetitive challenges. Their findings became the foundation for Rational Process, the Kepner-Tregoe method for effective organization management. Their book, The Rational Manager, (McGraw Hill, 1965) has become a business classic, translated into many languages and read throughout the world.

From our modest beginnings in Ben Tregoe's garage in Pacific Palisades, California, Kepner-Tregoe has built a network of offices around the world and improved the management practices of thousands of organizations. The first to focus on the critical need for training in problem solving and decision making, Kepner-Tregoe emerged more than four decades ago as a leader in the training industry.

Today our processes are used to achieve sustainable results by millions of people throughout the world. The first to introduce the "train-the-trainer" concept—developed as a methodology for transferring our approaches to clients—we revolutionized organizational improvement around the world.

The company remains at the forefront of organizational design, research, and practice—as it has since its founding. Today our approaches transcend organizational, industry, and national boundaries to help business people develop and apply critical thinking skills in a fast-paced, global economy.

A Visit with Ben and John

Video interview with Ben Tregoe, co-founder of Kepner-Tregoe
and his long time colleague John W Zimmerman. Circa 2005.